How to effectively present in English in the 21st Century

Over the last couple of days I have been reviewing what makes a Steve Jobs’ presentation so good. In particular I have been analysing the language he uses and when he uses key words and phrases.

Here are a list of a few things that are common throughout a Steve Jobs presentation that we can all learn from:

1. Do not begin your presentation with a list of contents.
Steve Jobs never begins a presentation with a slide of contents. A Steve Jobs presentation begins with a headline and nothing more. For example. In the October 2010 Special Event the ‘content’ slide was simply “The State Of The Mac” and that is all that was put on the slide.

You do not need to put a content slide with a list of contents. All you need is a ‘headline’ which captures the topic / subject of your presentation and then let your words do the rest. By putting a content slide into your presentation your audience are immediately going to think “oh no! Another 20th century presentation”

2. Focus only on two or three main features of a product
Apple is a technology company that develops and makes many products that contain very advanced, complicated technology. Much of this technology is so advanced that most of us, and indeed, a typical Apple customer is never going to understand or care about. When Apple talks about a new product they do not talk about all the advanced technology because they know most of their audience are not going to understand it. What Apple does is focus on two or three features that they think their audience are going to love. All the rest of the features can be read about or tried after the presentation.

When the IOS 4.1 operating system was launched it had over 100 new features. However, in the keynote presentation announcing this, Steve Jobs only listed five things (See image below) he then only showed two new things, the HDR photo and the Games Center.

3. Use superlative and positive adjectives – lots of them
The words that always stand out to me when I listen to a Steve Jobs’ presentation are all the positive adjectives and superlative adjectives he uses. Below are just a few that I heard during the September and October 2010 presentations:

“We’ve got some really cool stuff to show you this morning”
“We’ve got some fun stuff to share with you this morning”
“it’s really gorgeous“
“Isn’t it beautiful?”
“IOS is our operating system that powers our mobile devices and it’s been a revolution in terms of touch and apps

When you are presenting you need to demonstrate passion for your topic and by using these positive adjectives you help to make your presentation much more passionate.

So there are just a few things that I wanted share with you. I hope they prove useful to you in your next presentation.

One of the things I like to use for slide design inspiration is poster adverts (or print advertising).

As I travel around Seoul, I am always looking at the adverts I see around for inspiration in my slide design. This is because these posters have been created by professional designers and therefore I can use that to help me with my design ideas.

Yesterday, while on the subway going down to Bundang, I saw this advert. I really liked the colours and the way that the black and white image contrasted with the strong purple. In addition I saw that there was plenty of room in the image to put strong text that stood out.

So, I recreated the poster design for a slide I would use in a presentation.

In order to help create the right layout I used the guides function in Keynote (there is also the same function in PowerPoint) Below, you can see the guides I used:

Once I had the guides in place, all I needed to do was arrange an image and coloured block and then type in the words I want to use. In total it took around 5 minutes to create.

So, getting inspiration for effective, beautiful slides is not difficult. All you need to do is to open your eyes and look around you. There is inspiration everywhere!

Love him or hate him, and I admit I never voted for him, Tony Blair is a great public speaker.

Last Friday, Tony Blair attended the British Iraq Inquiry and as usual the media were hoping for, if not praying for, a huge blunder from Mr Blair, and as usual Mr Blair was composed, eloquent and firm in what he was saying and in the way he answered the questions. (and I am sure many people will disagree with me, but I am only looking at this from a speaking performance not a political point one)

Tony Blair trained as a lawyer (a barrister to be precise) and as a barrister, he will have trained in public speaking. However, in was not that training that gave him his speaking brilliance. Tony Blair’s speaking excellence comes from his dedication to preparation and being fully aware and knowledgeable of his subject.

When he speaks there is an air of confidence about him. He knows how not to answer a question (a very useful skill for a politician) and he knows exactly which words and sentences to stress. He never looks uncomfortable when speaking and he animates his words by strong hand and arm movement.

No matter what Tony Blair is talking about, he always comes across as knowledgable, passionate and confident, and as a presenter in the twenty-first century that is what you must come across as.

Too often when I see people presenting here in Korea they stand at the front of the room looking like mannequins and not moving at all. No head movement, no hand movement or even eye movement (they are usually fixing their eyes upon their printed out script) and there is no feeling at all coming from the speaker. No passion, no stress and certainly nothing interesting coming from their mouths.

As a presenter, you no longer can afford to present in this style. You need to follow the example set by Tony Blair and focus on stressing the important words, using pause to get get people listening intently and creating movement in your words through hand and arm gestures.

It is not difficult, but it takes practice and knowledge of your subject. Through practice and knowledge comes confidence and quite often presentations fail because the presenter has not prepared well enough and therefore has little or no confidence.

Take a look at this short clip of Tony Blair at the Iraq Inquiry and decide for yourself just how good this guy really is.

Many of you may already have heard of the incredible story of Bill Williams. If you have not, then you should first watch this very short video clip before reading further

What is amazing about Bill Williams is how he was able to introduce his skill (his incredible voice) and tell his life story in less than three minutes.

Too often as presenters, we put in far too much information that instead of making our story clear and easy to understand, actually makes our story vague and forgettable,

Ted William’s story was told in a short, clear and precise way, which was likely the reason the video above became so popular so fast and also why his story became unforgettable.

Another reason why I feel his story became so popular was that he gave a demonstration of his skill right from the very beginning. It made us, the audience, go “WOW!” and from that moment on Bill Williams had our attention and we wanted to know more.

When we present we must think about these things. What can I do or say at the beginning of my presentation that will capture my audience’s attention and make them want to learn more about what I want to say?

That is why unrelated gimmicks do not work. While gimmicks might be interesting, they do not have your audience wanting to learn more about what you want to say and so once you begin speaking your audience quickly loses attention.

Beginning your presentation with something that has them going WOW! Wanting to know more, gives you a presentation that is memorable and has your audience excited. By achieving that you have gone a long way to dramatically improving your presentations.

Garr Reynolds on the PresentationZen blog has a detailed post on the phenomenon of Bill Williams and I recommend that you spend some time reading it.

I am an avid fan of motor sport. I have followed F1 and the World Rally Championship for many, many years.

One of my favourite motor sport events is the Dakar Rally. This rally is held every year in January in Argentina and Chile (previously it was called the Paris Dakar rally and was held in Africa) And every year for the past three years I have watched each day’s highlights to catch up on what was happening.

So, I began to wonder how I would explain this unique rally to a group of people who did not know anything about this rally. This then led me to realise that the only way I could effectively capture the drama, scenery and uniqueness of this rally would be to use the twenty-first century style of presenting. The 1990s style simply would not work, it could never capture the feel of the rally.

So, I decided to use the explanation of this rally to demonstrate how a twenty-first century presentation can use all the technology, and power in your presentation software to capture the essence of the Dakar Rally.

First:

A 1990s slide:

In a 1990s style presentation what you get is a small picture (here, the logo of this years Dakar) and a bullet pointed list of the rally’s features.

The problem with this approach is that to anyone who does not know anything about motor sport (and there really are a lot of people like that out there) this really does not help them to fully understand what it is all about. Essentially, this type of slide, and the words that would usually accompany it from the presenter is not going to help their audience understand.

Second:

A Twenty-First Century slide:

In a twenty-first slide you actually can now see the rally, the speed, the drama and the ground (you can see how dusty the road surface is) You also can see the types of vehicles that are raced in this rally. Now the presenter does not have to go into fine detail to describe the types of vehicles involved because the audience can now see the types of vehicles racing. There is no need for text, because the presenter can give the words – which is why the presenter is there in the first place. The whole thing just works much better.

Now, to really capture the drama, the competitive nature of the sport and the excitement, you could also include a second slide which includes a video – for example:

The difference is huge, and that is essentially the difference between what we used to do in the 1990s, and sadly, what many presenters still do today, and what we should be doing today.

The basis of a twenty-first century presentation is that you use all the media available to you to convey your message. Text alone seldom does it any more.